A shared imitation: Cistercian convents and crusader families in thirteenth-century Champagne
This article examines the relationship between Cistercian nunneries and the crusade movement and considers the role of gender in light of the new emphasis on penitential piety and suffering prevalent during the thirteenth century.
Valentine’s Day Medieval Love: Books for that special someone
Love is in the air! Here are a few medieval books on the topic of love for your Valentine.
Chaucer’s female characters in the Canterbury Tales: Born to thralldom and penance, and to been under mannes governance
This essay will also demonstrate that in order to be considered a good wife a woman
needed to be humble and obedient and to accept her fate as being subject to male authority figure without resistance.
Elisabeth of Schönau: Visions and Female Intellectual Culture of the High Middle Ages
Elisabeth of Schönau (1128/29-1164/65) was a Rhineland Benedictine who wrote numerous visionary texts. These works addressed local problems in the cloister and community, reform within the Church, and theological questions.
Women Healers and the Medical Marketplace of 16th-Century Lyon
Women Healers and the Medical Marketplace of 16th-Century Lyon Alison Klairmont-Lingo Dynamis: Vol.19 (1999) Abstract Although women’s legal and marital status make them…
Laxdæla Dreaming: A Saga Heroine Invents Her Own Life
As palpably true as the interpretation is, even before the truth of Gestr’s fourfold prophecy is confirmed by what follows, this dream narrative is not merely a symbolic illustration of the future. It raises many other questions, and in this paper I will discuss some of the ambiguities of GuQrun Osvifrsdottir and her four dreams.
Women, Gender and Lordship in France, c.1050–1250
Arguing that scholars should follow methods of analysis developed by historians of women in the early Middle Ages and must confront problems in the so-called ‘Duby thesis’, this article shows how anachronistic analytical categories and insufficient source criticism have masked our appreciation of the extensive political activities of non-royal aristocratic women in France during the eleventh to thirteenth centuries.
Integrative Medicine: Incorporating Medicine and Health into the Canon of MedievalEuropean History
Hitherto peripheral (if not outright ignored) in general medieval historiography, medieval medical history is now a vibrant subdiscipline, one that is rightly attracting more and more attention from ‘mainstream’ historians and other students of cultural history.
BOOKS: Great Reads about Medieval Queens!
Queens Consort: England’s Medieval Queens from Eleanor of Aquitaine to Elizabeth of York Author: Lisa Hilton Publisher: Pegasus (August 3, 2010) Summary England’s medieval…
Menstruation in Sacred Places. Medieval and Early-Modern Jewish Women in the Synagogue
How sacred is the Synagogue? Can a woman enter this holy place while menstruating? What is more sacred: the space, or the Holy objects within it?
The Reputation of the Queen and Public Opinion: The Case of Isabeau of Bavaria
This essay takes issue with a still common tendency to read contemporary criticisms of powerful women as straightforward evidence of their “unpopularity,” using as a cast study Isabeau of Bavaria (1371-1435), who was generally imagined to have suffered the scorn of her contemporaries.
Looking in the Past for a Discourse of Motherhood: Birgitta of Sweden and Julia Kristeva
This essay explores two parallel trajectories of mythic retrospection: medieval “myths” of the Biblical past (like Birgitta’s prophetic visions), and modern “myths” of the medieval past (like Kristeva’s survey).
Estreitement bende: Marie de France’s Guigemar and the erotics of tight dress
This article examines the change in women’s fashion that occurred during the 12th century. Garments went from loose and flowing to tightly fitted, featuring belts and laces. The author examines this cultural change through the romance stories complied in the “Lais” of Marie de France, specifically one featuring the character of Guigemar.
They Hasten toward Perfection: Virginal & Chaste Monks in the High Middle Ages
As perennial Christian ideals, virginity and chastity were frequent themes in medieval religious discourse. Male religious were frequently virgins and were expected to cultivate chastity; however, women not men were usually the focus of such discussions. But some monastic writers did draw on those models when considering their own spirituality, and it is worth knowing how they were understood and enlisted in those instances.
Theodora, Aetius of Amida, and Procopius: Some Possible Connections
Behind the purported facts of Theodora’s career as a common prostitute and later as empress are the hidden details of what we might call feminine pharmacology: what were the drugs used by prostitutes and call-girls in sixth-century Byzan- tium? Were there ordinary pharmaceuticals employed by such professionals to stay in business?
Great Medieval Fiction 2013!
For those of you who enjoy some fantasy or a historical novel – this list is for you!
Women In The Medieval And Renaissance Period: Spectators Only
The particular concern in this paper is the involvement of women in sport during the Middle Ages and Renaissance period and, indeed, the analysis will examine this involvement as to woman’s role as spectator or participant.
Judging Female Judges: Sir John Fortescue’s Vision of Women as Judges in De Natura Legis Naturae
Judging Female Judges: Sir John Fortescue’s Vision of Women as Judges in De Natura Legis Naturae Emma Hawkes Limina, Volume 8, (2002) Abstract The…
Two dozen and more Silkwomen of Fifteenth-Century London
This article attempts to record systematically all the silkwomen of London who were daughters or wives of London mercers between 1400 and 1499.
Transvestite Knights: Men and Women Cross-dressing in Medieval Literature
In this thesis, I will look at mainly French and German texts from the 12th to the 15th centuries which deal with the subject of cross-dressers in the decidedly masculine domain of the knight. There are many tales of cross-dressing, particularly of women, but the concept of men dressing as women while jousting, and women dressing as knights, brings up several questions about the clothes, what it meant to be male and female, and how cross-dressing could be viewed on the tournament field.
What do We Really Know about Medieval Women?
What do We Really Know about Medieval Women? Carolina Galdiz (Trinity College) 115 Vernon, Paper 26, (2013) Abstract At the onset of this…
The Queen and her consort : succession, politics and partnership in the kingdom of Navarre, 1274-1512
This thesis draws attention to an exceptional group of sovereigns and demonstrates the important role that these women and their spouses played in the political history of Western Europe during the Late Middle Ages. It also highlights the particular challenges of female rule and offers new modes of analysis by focusing on unique areas of investigation which have not been previously examined
An Examination of the Family in ‘The Tale of Sir Gareth’
This thesis investigates the theme of family interactions within Malory‘s ―Tale of Sir Gareth,‖ examining the tale itself as well as looking at several analogous Fair Unknown stories in order to determine if the theme is Malory‘s own or if it could have come from a probable source.
Time, consciousness and narrative play in late Medieval secular dream poetry and framed narratives
This thesis proposes to look at the equation between time and text in the later medieval period. Time-telling and tale-telling have a particularly dynamic relationship in the considers time-telling and temporal referencein an era (c.1230 – 1500) that time-measurement multiple cultural experiencesa greatvariety of types of and
attitudes to time.